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tv   Closing Bell With Maria Bartiromo  CNBC  October 30, 2012 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT

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hi, everybody. welcome to this special edition of the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. i'm coming to you live from new york city at rockefeller center. the new york stock exchange reopening tomorrow. millions of people remain without power and the death toll is continuing to rise. wall street closed for a second straight day today but will reopen with normal trading, we are understanding, tomorrow. the former nyse chairman dick grasso joins me now. we'll get his take on what it takes to reopen after a two-day shutdown. meanwhile, bob spoke with the current ceo earlier today. he joins us with the latest details. >> it's all systems go.
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that's what he told me. the nyse along with all of the other exchanges will open as usual tomorrow for a full trading day. the most important issue was making sure the nyse could connect with the trading community. >> i think what we're most worried about, bob, and we've been working with the clients and will continue to do so throughout the day, is since a lot of them are working from their own contingency sites, we want to make sure it's working as planned. that's not something that's tested frequently. >> the other major issue is making sure there were enough personnel to open the trading floor. the opening of the bridges and tunnels is making it possible to get the roughly 200 people they need to open the nyse. many are already there. there's been pressure on all of the exchanges to open tomorrow since it is the last trading day of the month and many report their gains and losses on a monthly basis. be a big day tomorrow. of course, i'll be there for the
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open. >> bob, what do you think it means for the last day of the month? why is that so important, and what kind of action might we see on top of the sort of pent-up demand given the closure of the last few days? >> a lot of funds report to their investors on a monthly basis. so the last day of the trading month, some funds want to dump losers, invest in winners. there's usually a pick up in volume. i think that's what we'll see. the pent-up demand over the last few days will increase the volume. the question is just making sure everything occurs in an orderly basis. that's the main concern. >> and bob, there was no flooding at the new york stock exchange. we heard about region around the exchange. duncan told you there was no upset to the physical trading floor. >> not only is the building impac intact, but the back-up generators were working
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overnight. >> all right, bob. thanks so much. as that cleanup continues across the east coast, investors are gearing up for tomorrow, the first day of fully operational markets in the aftermath of sandy. tonight the cme group will reopen its u.s. equity endex futures and options markets. tomorrow it will resume normal hours of the trading floor. joining me now in an exclusive interis the cme chairman. we appreciate you spending the time with us today. >> thanks, maria. our thoughts and prayers are with you and everyone in new york. >> thank you so much. tell us what worked last night. what with did go operational? what kind of trading are you expecti ining tonight? >> you know, everything pretty much worked. we have with invested tremendously in our back-up facilities. we were up and running with no problems whatsoever. we didn't see a tremendous amount of movement in the market, which i think is actually a good thing for what's
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gone on in the world right now. so we saw the s&p go from roughly 1407 to as low as 1399 and come back up as high as 1411 when we closed up this morning. we are seeing some activity. the volume i would say is just a little bit off of what it would normally be. >> so as the savvy trader you have been in the past, what would you expect once trading resumes tomorrow? do you think there's pent-up demand on the sell side that people will want to get out of position given the two-day shutdown or no? >> well, marie yarks i think we would have seen more of that at the cme. we trade the benchmarks and futures contracts which were open overnight. people have access to markets 24 hours a day. i think we would have seen that pent-up demand coming to our marketplace over the last 24 to 48 hours. we've seen minimal price movements. now it's all worried about what the cost of the cleanup is going to be. >> all right. so you've got the cost of cleanup and the cost of, i guess, revenue lost over the
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last two days. what would you anticipate to be the broad effect in terms of the financial impact of this shutdown and of the cost of the cleanup? >> well, the cost of the cleanup's really hard for me to say what that's going to be. only, just seeing the pictures on television, the devastation is amazing. i have no idea what that cost is going to be. from a financial impact, it's expensive when we're not open. people cannot do risk transfers. we're glad to be open on our overnight sessions and look forward to having a full day tomorrow and to get back in business. it is important to have the financial markets up and running to people can do risk transfer in kas trocatastrophic situatio. >> can you estimate what we're talking about in terms of lost revenue for the two days we were cloe closed? >> i would expect several million dollars. >> you also had companies postpone quarterly earnings and
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delaying ipos. it was supposed to be a big week for ipos. any thoughts on what that means? >> i don't think there's going to be any significant cost to the delays of the ipos. i did an ipo at the cme. things get put off for a day or two all the time. i don't see that as a k significant problem. >> it was the right call, do you think, to shut down? largely, it wasn't necessarily that the system could not operate, but that the human capital, people could not get to their jobs. >> maria, i think that's what's most important here. when you have roughly 50% of the participants that don't have access to the new york marketplace in the greater metropolitan area, you have to take that into consideration. their safe it of the utmost importance. i do think it was the right decision. now the decision to move forward, i know duncan has said
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they're going to be open tomorrow. we'll be fully open tomorrow. that's what's important now. >> how much could have done electronically? i know that metals went electronic. it's interesting to me to see that, yeah, we have this largely electronic trading network, even though we have the floors in place, but even, you know, with an event as severe as sandy, you didn't go forward with just electronics. >> well, we were, as you know, fully electronic on all our products on the overnight session. we were up in trading today on our nonequity products. our interest rate products were closed last night also. it is important to note that we have the capability as does everybody else to be fully electronic. having people to get access to the computers to trade electronic, marimaria, is just important. whether you're living in upstate new york or central manhattan and don't have access to a computer to participate, i think that was more the issue.
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no one wanted to jeopardize people's safety. >> you think we'll still see volume on the light side as this cleanup continues and we i did ju -- digest the effects of sandy snmplt i think we're going to continue to see that the rest of the year. >> terry, thanks for being on the program. we'll check in tomorrow when trading resumes. terry duffy joining us at the cme group. surviving sandy, dick grasso is with me next. he'll talk us through getting to the heart of the nation's financial capital. later on, the latest on that crane that is still dangling over west 57th street in manhattan as the question goes unanswered as to why it was never taken dprount the roof of this high rise ahead of the superstorm. then, massive destruction across atlantic city, which took a direct hit. we'll take you to atlantic city and tally up the damage.
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all this and a reminder to catch cnbc special programming tonight. "sandy: the path of destruction" begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. on cnbc. from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education.
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welcome back. wall street will reopen for trading tomorrow after its two-day shutdown. lower manhattan is still feeling the effects of sandy. scott cohn is there now with the latest. >> maria, you're going to be talking in a moment with dick grasso, the former head of the new york stock exchange. i remember spending time with anymore that building after 9/11. he will appreciate the picture i'm about to show you from 10:30 last night as they were getting the exchange back up. they changed the lights, which stayed on, to red, white, and blue as a sign that the exchange is coming back. but there are a lot of other issues to deal with. you talked a moment ago with terry duffy from the cme group. we looked at the building where the trading floor is. it does seem to be undamaged.
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he said they're going to get back up and running. as of the last report a short time ago, they have not gotten inside yet to get ready for that because it is still an evacuation zone. they're waiting for the official word from the city. take a look at what you see elsewhere inman hah -- in manhattan. just all sorts of havoc and devastation, flooding, floating cars, floating debris. there's a lot of that going around in manhattan. while some of the infrastructure of the financial world is getting back up, the infrastructure of this city is still badly damaged. h maria. >> all right, scott. thanks so much. great insights. the cleanup of lower manhattan continues. the major exchanges are set to open for normal trading operations tomorrow. what can we expect to see when the bell rings at 9:30 a.m.? we ask someone who has been in
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charge after a major shutdown. joining us now by the telephone is former nyse chairman dick grasso who oversaw the exchange after the horrible september 11th attacks. thanks for spending time with us. >> maria, great to be with you. my compliments to you and the entire team at cnbc. you've done a great job keeping investors abreast of what's going on. >> thank you so much. >> a difficult situation. >> it really has been difficult. i want to ask you first about decision to close the nyse yesterday and today. we haven't see this, first of all, certainly since september 11th, when you made the decision to close on that tuesday and not reopen until the following monday because of the horrible effects of the terrorism. before that, we haven't seen a weather-related shutdown since 1888. was it the right call to stop trading for two full days? >> oh, i think that the markets and the regulators are to be
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congratulated for what they did, maria. because you have to bear in mind, human life should never be put at risk simply so that wall street can trade. i think the entire industry should be complimented for the way they've acted. of course, my old team at the nyse, led by duncan, who's done a great job, were ready go electronically if that's what the customer community wanted. clearly, the customers were very sensitive to not being able to staff their facilities with their traders, their analysts, their portfolio managers. so the decision to keep it closed for two days was a very, very smart one. i think everyone should congratulate the community as a whole because they've done the right thing. they put human life above stock trading. >> you know, the initial decision was to just close down the physical building and go,
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you know, do trading electronical electronically. several hours later, they decided to just shut the whole market. i was struck when, you know, i first got the e-mail saying they were closing the physical building and trading would go on. that basically was, for me, the evidence that trading will happen. you don't need the floor. what's your take on that? >> well, it's total role reversal, maria. i think the customer world recognized that the stock exchange and the nasdaq and the other market providers, the market platform provide errspro ready go electronically, but you need people to operate that technology, and you need customers to provide content to the marketplace. what you would have had with simply an electronic version of price discovery is something i think a lot of people would have been very disappointed in. i think it basically would have lent itself to greater market
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volatility, price dislocation, and no one would have been happy. i think while the markets were ready to go, the customers weren't ready, and the markets reflected that by keeping everything closed. >> so, dick, tell us what we might expect tomorrow. you've been in this position before, to have to check trading, check that you were to ensure you would have an orderly day of trading. what do you think is going on right now at the new york stock exchange? what are they, you know, dotting the is and crossing the ts to ensure that things open without a hitch tomorrow? >> well, the most important thing that we heard from duncan in his interview a bit ago is that he's concerned about customer connectivity to the exchange. i think the exchange unto itself has tested and retested many times its system since the shutdown so they're confident they're able to provide a
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rigorous and consistent market platform. the question becomes, are the customers of the exchange, the brokerage community and the greater customer community, particularly mutual funds, hedge funds, those who provide perhaps as much as 70 to 80% of the daily trading activity, are they plugged in? are they able to reach the exchange through their various systems? that's really the real key that is going on right now. i'm certain that the markets are ready to go. are the customers ready go is the real issue. i'm sure they're going to be testing right up until early morning tomorrow to be sure that the market will open and will open vigorously and there will be no systemic dislocations. >> dick, what kind of loss are we talking about in terms of revenue on the table from a two-day shutdown like this? how would you characterize the business lost as a result of the hurricane? >> well, i think you have to
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analyze it from different perspectives. from the perspective of the content coming to the exchange and the transactional volume and the commission volume, i think that it's probably in the millions. you know, if it's in the millions or tens of millions but you saved one life by doing it, it was a gret at investment. from the standpoint of the end of the year for some of the mutual funds and hedge funds, that will all come to sort itself out tomorrow and over the next few days. so i think it's delayed content. it's not lost content. if you tally the entire total up, it's well worth it if we saved one life by not trading. >> absolutely. dick, great to talk with you. really valuable for our audience to get your insights. we appreciate your time tonight. see you soon. >> always great to be with you.
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thanks, maria. congratulations. great job. >> thank you so much, dick. dick grasso joining us, former chairman and ceo at the nyse. up next, where's superman when you need him? the construction crane that collapsed during superstorm sandy is still hanging precariously over one of the busiest cross streets in manhattan. we'll take you live to the scene next and the massive litigation that is sure to follow because this crane collapsed as it was sitting on the roof of this building even though we anticipated this storm. later, millions are still without power as we speak across the east coast. damage estimates mounting in the billions of dollars. courtney reagan is tallying it up in few minutes. and how will hurricane sandy affect the elections? we're back in a moment. oh...there you go.
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welcome back. breaking news on disney right now. let's go to julia boorstin to broke the deal. julia. >> that's right, marimaria. disney is acquiring private lucas firm for $4 billion. i spoke to bob iger about why he wanted to make this deal. he said it really made sense considering the long-lasting
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relationship between george lucas and disney. disney does plan to release its "star wars" episode seven feature film in 2015. here's what bob iger had to spap. >> we expect this is only going to be slightly dilutive for the first two years. in year three, the year we release the star wars film. >> any other projections? >> well, this is a very exciting opportunity for us. again, there isn't anything like this out there, really. we're extremely excited about it. we're also honored to have the opportunity to continue george's great legacy. >> iger told me there's a massive outset here if licensing opportunitying. he said the consumer products is roughly the same as marvel's was when disney acquired marvel oalo
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for about $4 billion back in 2009. now, i have to point out, he's not just buying the star wars assets. they're also acquiring lucas arts, industrial light and magic, and skywalker sound. these are digital sound and digital effects studios that do work for studios across hollywood. they'll continue to be a service doing sort of the highest quality digital effects. back over to you. >> julia, does the deal include that disney will be able to get the licensing money from the characters of star wars as well? >> absolutely. this is an entire acquisition of the whole company. that includes not just the rights to make more star wars films, but also the rights to all those characters and all the licensi licensing. iger said he expects to make many more films in that franchise. >> you said they doing star wars seven when? >> that will be in 2015, which is the same year this deal will
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start to be acretive to disney's bottom line. >> great stuff. thanks so much. we'll watch the impact on disney's stock tomorrow once the market resumes trading. we've sixteeen a lot of dramati video from superstorm sandy. this could be the scariest of all. a crane collapsing yesterday and was left dangling in sandy's strong winds. robert frank has been there all day today. he joins us on the telephone. robert, what can you tell us? all day yesterday we were asking, how is it possible that the construction company left this crane on the top of this high rise knowing what we were expecting? >> yeah, that is the question that everyone's going to be asking. lawyers in particular over the coming days. right now it remains a very dangerous situation here in midtown. as you mentioned, there's a multiton crane still hanging from more than 70 stories above one of the busiest streets in midtown manhattan. that's 57th street.
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mayor bloomberg said before once the winds die down, they have to die down to below 30 miles an hour, the crews can start to get up there and secure that giant boom and then either start to dismantle it or bring up another crane, which will have to rescue this crane. we've seen crane crews try to go up there today, but it's been too windy. the lawsuits on this, the blame game that hasn't started yet in public, but you can be sure it's going on behind the scenes. not just the businesses on this street that have had to close down, but the owner of the building, the contractor of this building as well as the crane operator and perhaps the company that put up the crane. you can bet there's going to be a lot of behind the scenes tensions of who blames who. we had a similar incident a few years ago. that was thrown out in court. lucki luckily, this hasn't happened yet. we're all waiting, hoping this crane does not fall down. a lot of people watching to see
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who's going to be be held responsible. >> all right, robert. thanks very much. this crane collapse is certain to generate an avalanche of lawsuits from people who have already shelled out millions to one day live in that high-rise apartment building. joining me in a plaintiff's attorney who specializes in construction accidents and has handled many crane cases. we also reached out to the general contractor on the building but were met only with recorded messages. and to excel industries, the owner of the crane, we traded messages with their representative but never received a statement as well. good to have you on the program. thanks for joining us. >> hi, maria. thanks for having me. >> what are you expecting here? do you think we're going see lawsuits? who is going to be suing whom over this crane accident? >> i'm sure we're going to be seeing lawsuits. let me say one thing first. the good news here is that nobody was hurt. so far, nobody's been hurt. that's really the main thing here to keep in mind. this could have really been a very, very tragic accident.
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in fact, i applaud the city for making the decision to shut the water and gas pipes because there was concern at one point that the boom would fall into the concrete underneath, pierce through, and there could be a major explosion. so that said, it's good that there's been no injuries to date. however, look at what's happened now. people have had to be evacuated in the buildings surrounding the area. the tenants had to leave. businesses surrounding the area will have lots and lots of commercial losses as a consequence of having been forced to leave for god knows how long. and on top of that, the investors who plunk down millions of dollars into this very fancy high rise are now suffering huge losses as this situation continues. who's going to be sued? well, in situations like this, there's the owner of the building, of course, who has a responsibility to see things are done safely.
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>> because of damages to the building? >> because of damages to the building, because of damages to people. >> does the fact that it toppled over, does that tell you someone was negligent? >> it tells me there's an awfully high suspicion that some negligence went on. listen, why was this crane left on top of the roof at a time when we knew for days that there was going to be a huge hurricane, the hugest ever the city was to face? so that's one question. in addition to that, i've seen reported that there were a number of problems with this crane. there were failed inspections. there were issues with the hydraulic system. there were issues with wire ropes. there have been issues, according to reports i've seen, since the spring and as recently as september. the whole site was shut down because of problems with the crane. something is going on. there's a high level of suspicion. of course, until the
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investigation is complete, we're not going to know exactly where the problem lay. i'll say something else. this could also be a situation where there was something wrong with with the crane itself. this could be a product liability situation because manufacturers of products like cranes are responsible if there are defects, even if they did nothing wrong. if there's a defect that causes an injury, property damage as well -- >> well, who the heck would expect 70-mile-an-hour winds? but yeah, we fwknew what to expect. we knew the winds were coming. you had to expectation some conversation about moving that crane off the top of the building. diane, thank you very much. >> thank you. up next, parts of atlantic city's famed boardwalk ripped to shreds. the city under water. kayla has been covering a.c. since sandy hit. she joins us next on the aftermath of this superstorm. also ahead -- >> i appreciate the presence,
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telephone call. if we need something, i have the number and i'll be sure to use it. >> new jersey governor and mitt romney supporter chris christie setting politics aside because of sandy. how will the superstorm impact the presidential election just one week away? i'll speak with pennsylvania governor ed remember dell on the back half of this show. don't miss it. ♪ [ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate
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welcome back to our special coverage. the northeast is still recovering from superstorm sandy, which is expected to cause billions of dollars in damages. we have full team coverage of the storm. kayla is in atlantic, city, new jersey, right now. we start with courtney reagan. she's got the latest on the number of people currently living without power. >> that's right. it is millions. 8.5 million, to be specific, still without power. new york city is dealing with a historic outage. con-ed says it will restore power within brooklyn and manhattan in two days. superstorm sandy it dumping snow on the west virginia region. we have a few updates on o openings to report.
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the federal agencies in washington, d.c. are now open. employees are still being allowed to telecommute. as we've been reporting, the nyse and nasdaq listen open for trading tomorrow. we're just getting word from the imex that it will reopen tomorrow as well provided the city lifts e orders for zone "a." mayor bloomberg not giving a timeline for restoration due to considerable flooding and damage. early inspections reveal that the storm, quote, devastated the new jersey transit's operation and infrastructure. however, washington, d.c.'s mass transit system is restoring. boston's service has already been resumed. maria. >> what an unbelievable impact. thank you. parts of atlantic city, new jersey jersey, are still under water that the hour. kayla is here with that angle. over to you. >> well, maria, all is quiet in
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atlantic city as of right now despite being the bull's eye yesterday evening. the majority of shore county still remains evacuated. officials are taking this on a day-by-day basis. meanwhile, residents of long beach island are saying it could be weeks. that's how bad the flooding is there. new jersey governor chris christie making a trip to the jersey shore today. definitely some strong comments from him. i know you'll get more of that in a second. i want to talk about the casino industry. expected to be hard hit from the damage from the storm. we've done a little lap around some of the casinos. we're seeing the lights on and seeing people inside.
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caesers has power and should open on thursday. baleys, the casino floor looks completely unscathed. that should resume operation as normal. a few windows blown out, but we're told they are housing essential personnel and have been throughout the storm. so possibly not as badly destructive to the industry here on the boardwalk in atlantic city as once thought. also, we should dispel a few rumors about the boardwalk that ripped off yesterday. the footage was scene around the world. that piece of boardwalk was actually way far at the end of where i'm standing, a long forten and underdeveloped part of the boardwalk. no doubt devastating to see that rip off. as far as the core business here in new jersey, this boardwalk is still standing. back to you. >> amazing. thank you so much, kayla. we'll keep checking back. thank you. be sure to catch cnbc's special programming tonight "sandy: the path of destruction."
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it all begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. what impact will sandy have on the race that's running neck and neck? wait until you hear what former pennsylvania governor ed rendell has to say. he's a big supporter of the president. we're back in a moment. [ male announcer ] this is steve.
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he loves risk. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts, which is why he trades with a company that doesn't nickel and dime him with hidden fees. so he can worry about other things, like what the market is doing and being ready, no matter what happens, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense, from td ameritrade. welcome back. the massive storm has stolen the stage from the presidential electi election, which happens one week from today. john is here with the latest. >> well, the impact today was
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clear. the president cancelled his campaign events. he monitored from the white house with members of his administration the situation with efforts to recover from the impact of sandy. tomorrow he's going to travel to new jersey and appear with chris christie, the republican governor who said very nice things about his response so far. mitt romney also canceled the political portion of his public events today, although he did appear in ohio at an event to raise funds and supplies for the relief effort for people affected by sandy. the long-term impact, how it's going to affect the vote, is very, very speculative. no one knows. i haven't talked to many political people who think it's going to change many people's votes, but it could disrupt voting in some places and cause polling places to have to move. i'll be very interested to hear what ed rendell has to say about that. philadelphia and the philadelphia suburbs, very important to democratic performance in pennsylvania, those could be among the areas affected. >> all right, john. thanks very much.
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we want to ask the governor now, how does this massive storm impact the election? joining me now from philadelphia is former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. always nice to have you on the program. thanks for joining us. >> maria, let me start off by saying i join with the president and governor christie in saying this all pales in insignificance to the people out there suffering. i commend governor christie for praising the president even though he's a strong romney supporter. i think governor christie understands that in a time like this everyone has to act together. >> before we get into the politics of it, governor, what kind of shape is the state of pennsylvania in right now? the philadelphia area, from what you've seen and heard. >> we're in pretty good shape. e with dodged a bullet. first and foremost, we don't have a coastline, so we didn't get the storm surge. secondly, around 2:30 yesterday, the storm dipped south of
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philadelphia and south of most of pennsylvania. just hit lancaster county a little bit. the rain abated. we got a little less than three inches of rain. we really dodged a bullet. there won't be any major disruptions in philadelphia or in the philadelphia suburbs. >> thank god for that. the president is at the forefront of leading the effort. is that key for him to look and act presidential following a disaster like this before the eyes of voters just days leading into the election? >> i think there are three advantages to the obama campaign and to the president. one is just what you've identified. the president, by just doing his job and doing it well and by mi making sure that fema performs well and the entire federal bureaucracy responds officially, he gets points. he looks like a leader. he looks like someone in command. that's always good for undecided voters. it's always good to motivate someone in his base who wasn't sure they were going to vote.
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secondly, if you subscribe to the theory that the romney campaign had momentum t looked like it did in some of the swing states. this is a timeout for three days. it's like a basketball game where one side is coming back from being way down and they're only two buoyapoints down. all the sudden the scoreboard clock goes down. for ten minutes they repair the clock. after that, the team has lost its momentum. i think the guy that had momentum is hurt by a three-day layoff. thirdly, there's a fundamental distinction between the two campaigns and two visions. one says that government should get out of the way and let the private sector do its job. one, the president's campaign, said government's important. at a time like this, people are reminded as clearly and as graphically as they can be how important government is, how important it is that fema does its job and the state of new jersey and governor christie and his people do their job and that andrew cuomo and mayor bloomberg
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do their job. so government matters. this brings that home to people. >> what about the idea that people are just upset? you've got millions of people still without power. you've got, you know, all of this cleanup going on. isn't there some truth to the idea that people are just not happy right now and they go against the incumbent as a result of that, for no other reason just because mother name impacted their lives? >> the people are smarter than that. as long as they see the relief efforts are moving quickly and that the president or governors or mayors are doing everything they can, they're going to appreciate those efforts. people are not -- we always, in the media, and we politicians, always underestimate the intelligence of the american people. they will understand. they'll understand there's so many homes without power and so few trucks to restore that power. they can't start until the wind dies down. so people are going to be patient as long as theydistribu
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resources well. i think government will perform well. this is not going to be katrina. when government performs well, they t re-emphasizes in people's minds that government does matter. >> what's your take on the early voting story? you have a new poll showing governor romney still in the lead and certainly they're tied, 47% each, cwhen you look at eary voting turnout. how much of an impact does this storm have on early voting turnout? >> well, some, but so many people have voted. look at ohio. a third of the voters have will be cast their votes. i think early voting has helped with the democratic base. i think the democratic base has gotten more and more enthusiastic, more and more fired up. you're seeing that with the long lines in places in urban centers
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which tend to be democratic. i think it's going to be a surprisingly good democratic turn youtd. >> all right. we'll leave it there. governor, good to have you on the program. let's go back to julia boorst boorstin. we have more on the disney/lucas film deal. >> that's right, maria. walt disney is acquiring lucas films for $4.05 billion. we spoke to bob iger about why he's doing this deal, saying there's a great asset here, not only in the star wars brand, but also in the consumer products, which he say is a real power house, even when there's not a big movie in the works. disney does plan to release a star wars episode seven in 2015. we spoke to george lucas about why he decided to sell his company to disney and what the potential is for disney down the line. here's what he had to say. >> even though we make quite a bit of money with just the
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licensing, you know, when we actually make a movie, which now they're going to start doing, really t goes through the roof. >> disney says it really believes it's uniquely positioned to make the most out of this lucas film franchise, which includes industrial light and magic, which is a studio. it sounds like the two of them have been in talks for years. they have an ongoing relationship. they only really started talking in earnest about this deal this year. on the conference with investors going on right now, disney did say that it expects lucas films to generate over $200 million in revenue this year. of course, that revenue will go up dramatically once the next movie is released in 2015. maria. >> all right, julia. thanks so much. julia boorstin with a blockbuster deal. the markets will open for business tomorrow after their longest unscheduled closure for
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weather sense 1888. our trio of experts will gear you up for the opening. don't go away.
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♪ welcome back to our special coverage. today the cleanup. tomorrow, the last day of october. what day will we be looking for for investors? we have our team of money market experts to help you break down what to expect tomorrow. steven from emp funds is with me, andrew keen from keen on the market and krifchristopher from wells fargo advisers. thanks for joining us. >> great having us on. >> steven, let's kick it off with you. wa are you expecting tomorrow when trading resumes after this two-day shutdown? >> we do expect relatively low volume. really due to personnel having quite difficulty in the east
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just getting to work and getting through all the mess. but we don't expect significant impact because the -- the catalyst to what we've gone through in this superstorm sandy really doesn't have a lot to do with our long-term outlook or the view of the markets. so we don't really expect an impact. for us it's just like any other day. but we do expect some volume relating to many strategies that have rebalancing. one thing we need to consider, we have had good reports with the schiller home price index increasing 2% since august which is the best we've seen in two years. >> right. >> we expect everything to go back to normal come tomorrow. >> all right. we have 30 seconds on the clock. andrew keen, what are you looking for tomorrow when the opening bell rings? in terms of this final day o the month. how does that play out? >> the futures open in an hour and ten minutes and we actually rebounded. we were down to 1393 in the s&p 500 futures then got good news
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out of europe as well. we see the euro rally. bp and deutsche bank come out with positive results. we also had case-shiller which was good. there's a bud bullish sentiment despice sandy. the last day of the month will be critical for hedge funds and mutual funds who close their books tomorrow. we might get light value yum with apple news as well. i'm going to watch all these through tomorrow. >> paul christopher, you're up real quick. what do you want to look at tomorrow? what does that mean that end of month balancing from hedge funds? what does that mean for the direction of the market? >> the end of the month balancing might introduce a little bit more volatility at the open. probably mostly at the open. we expect low volume tomorrow and in general markets will be looking past the storm as soon as they can to what will be the election. the fiscal cliff and some issues in europe. >> all right. we'll leave it there. gentlemen, thank you very much. we'll be all over those items tomorrow. appreciate it. my thoughts on superstorm sandy and her impact on the already
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the latest hard numbers show over 8 million people are still without electricity across 18 states as we speak. many of those states densely populated in the united states. while this was a freak storm, it's demonstrated that when our outdated power grid is tested, it fails. now, of course, we cannot control such things as the weather, so let's focus on what we can control. how we can improve our infrastructure like our power grid. to me this storm and the massive power failure should be a clarion call to address our antiquated grid to better withstand such uncontrollable events and to do this, once again, it comes down to reining in the fast growing $16 trillion debt the united states is currently saddled with. that total growing by more than $1 trillion over year. that kind of burden on america, there is little wiggle room for unforeseen events such as hurricane sandy. and think about this. we managed to accumulate this debt and run an annual $1 trillion

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